Marrying the precise yet nuanced language of his earlier work with new, invented vocabularies and usages, Nicola Vulpe draws deep into the origins of language to confront what it means to write poetry or attempt any artistic endeavour, or, indeed, continue in a world where so many of us struggle, literally, not to drown. Written to be read aloud, to be heard like a poem in the most ancient oral traditions, Through the Waspmouth is a synesthetic work that arouses our senses and our intellect. We come to this poem as to a new language, a language whose details and mechanics are opaque, but which, like a child turning to innate linguistic resources, we nonetheless somehow understand, and into which we are drawn and held in thrall.

Nicola Vulpe considers poetry an unfortunate habit, but has nonetheless published three collections of poetry, When the Mongols Return, Insult to the Brain and Blue Tile, a novella, The Extraordinary Event of Pia H., an anthology of Canadian poetry about the Spanish Civil War, and essays on subjects as diverse as the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the afterlife of Norman Bethune.

Nicola Vulpe's profile page

• Long-listed, Fred Cogswell Award

For an example of truly fine poetry, Nicola Vulpe’s Through the Waspmouth does not disappoint: fine in formation and texture, fine in craft and effect. Abstract, enigmatic and searching, always at the edge of the possibility of description or evocation, this fascinating polyphonic sequence repays continual rereading.

Rob Miles, winner Philip Larkin Prize

Nicola Vulpe has done it again, taking an unexpected and rewarding route with this inventive poetic sequence. In Through The Waspmouth we enter the hidden orbit of words, chart the other side of the moon of inspiration, then share poems that rise and leap into the light of playful and fretted speech.

Seymour Mayne, winner Canadian Jewish Book Award

This collection of sparkling poems by Nicola Vulpe is both the Flood and the Ark, the great wash of language and a way to sail through those waves, finally depositing us on the shore of inevitable silence. But what a journey it’s been, with parrots declaiming and pairs of words finding other words to hugclose. A fabulous, fantastic voyage through the high seas of language.

Mark Frutkin, winner Trillium Book Award